There exists certain heavy oils such as Diluted bitumen (dilbit), some Fuel Oils, and Asphalt among others, which are separately classified by the US Coast Guard and the Spill Response Community as “Nonfloating”, Group V, or Sinking Oils due to the specific characteristic that they often sink in water. Weathering and other environmental conditions can cause many lighter oils to degrade, lose the lighter components and submerge as well. Traditional and current oil spill containment and protection techniques have been focused on floating oil—the oil that you can see. Using floating booms, responders have met with considerable success in containing, directing, and removing spilled oil on rivers; coastlines, and seaways. Used in a protection mode, these floating booms have been highly effective in defending ecologically and/or economically valuable and sensitive areas. These containment and protection booms have become the response community's most effective tool in containing and mitigating the damaging effects of floating oil spills but have been useless in impeding, recovering, or directing the migration of the heavier, sinking oils.
There has been much work in the art of oil containment booms, all of which though are purely designed to float on top of the water to contain and/or collect oil that is floating upon the surface of the water. These past inventions use highly flexible but impermeable fabrics like urethane and PVC coated nylon or poly scrim fabrics together with adsorbent or absorbent materials to contain and collect floating oil. These past inventions lack the ability to contain heavy oils in deep waters due to their inability to create and maintain an oil impermeable seal with the underwater floor.
Some variations of floating ballasted fencing has been used to attempt to seal against the seafloor, but the fence geometry of such devices extends from the water surface to the underwater floor thus causing huge tidal and current forces to be applied against the fence. These hanging fences are subject to tidal flow, wave propagation and/or river currents due to the positioning of their buoy system which allow them to lift and sway thus failing to create an impenetrable underwater floor seal. The present invention overcomes this shortcoming.
Other mobile fencing mechanisms have been used to fully prevent silt or fluid from passing—acting as flood barriers, dams, silt screens or the like. These past inventions use traditional dry land engineered fencing support structures to build and maintain the barrier prior to flooding,. Additionally some of these past inventions have used dredged holes that the fabric is buried in to create a seal prior to water flowing toward the fence. These past inventions lack the ability to be easily installed and removed on an underwater floor.